PUGH, KENNETH WARD
Remains Returned 1975
Name: Kenneth Ward Pugh
Rank/Branch: E2/US Navy
Unit: Heavy Attack Squadron 4, Detachment C, USS KITTY HAWK
Date of Birth: 06 September 1939
Home City of Record: Lancaster CA
Date of Loss: 12 April 1966
Country of Loss: China/Over Water
Loss Coordinates: 210800N 1111700E (DN080420)
Status (in 1973): Missing In Action
Category: 5
Aircraft/Vehicle/Ground: KA3B
Refno: 0299
Other Personnel in Incident: Reuben B. Harris; Larry M. Jordan; William A.
Glasson (missing)
Source: Compiled by Homecoming II Project with the assistance of one or more
of the following: raw data from U.S. Government agency sources,
correspondence with POW/MIA families, published sources, interviews. UPDATED
BY THE P.O.W. NETWORK.
REMARKS: 751216 PRC RETD ASHES
EGRESS -- Peking Radio reported crew was shot down and captured alive.
SYNOPSIS: On April 12, 1966, at 1134 hours, LtCdr. William A. Glasson,
pilot; and LtJG Larry M. Jordan, ATCS Reuben B. Harris and PRCS Kenneth W.
Pugh, crewmembers, were flying a KA3B aerial tanker from Naval Air Station
Cubi Point, Republic of the Philippines for a return flight to their base
carrier. The crew were all assigned to Heavy Attack Squadron 4, Detachment
Charlie on board the USS Kitty HAWK. The aircraft had just undergone repair
of minor skin damage in the nosewheel area. When the aircraft did not arrive
at the ship at the planned recovery time, a search and rescue effort was
initiated with the assistance of the USS ENTERPRISE (CVN-65) and units from
the 3rd ARRG/13th Air Force.
A diplomatic incident occurred on April 19th when twenty-four aircraft from
the KITTY HAWK hit a harbor town 35 miles from the Chinese border. No
aircraft were lost over the town, Cam Pha, but a Polish merchant ship in the
harbor claimed to have been nearly struck by a bomb. Messages flew between
Washington D.C. and the fleet regarding details of the incident.
Hitting so close to Communist China's borders was dangerous. Soon the
Chinese began claiming numerous violations of their airspace by "United
States Imperialists". The Chinese claimed the destruction of the KA3B
aircraft lost on April 12, saying the aircraft had flown into Chinese
territory and was shot down near Hainan Island, which roughly correlated in
both time and approximate locationwith the missing KA3B aircraft. Protests
were lodged by the State Department, but the Communists maintained that the
plane was attacking Chinese fishermen on the high seas of the Gulf of
Tonkin.
It was later determined after search and rescue efforts were terminated that
the A-3B aircraft was in fact shot down in the vicinity of the Luichow
Peninsula, Kuangtung Province, China. It was the opinion of a casualty
review board that the crew most likely was killed in the crash.
Normally, tankers are unarmed, but they still retained their weapons bay,
and the United States never denied outright that the Skywarrior was armed.
This is not the first time such a situation had occurred. From time to time,
there were claims and counterclaims of shootdowns and harassment. (It is
probably true also that American pilots in hot pursuit of escaping MiGs may
have inadvertently - or intentionally - chased their quarry into Red China.)
On December 16, 1975, the People's Republic of China returned ashes it said
were those of Kenneth Pugh, but gave no word of the rest of the crew. The
three are among less than a dozen Americans missing in China from the
Vietnam war.
There is mounting evidence that China retained (and retains today) many
Americans from the Korean conflict, while denying knowledge of there
whereabouts. While the circumstances of the loss of the KA3B does not seem
to indicate that any of the crew survived, it would seem that if China could
account for Pugh, it could also account for Glasson, Jordan and Harris.